Rikke saw the restaurant she was supposed to be at, checked her phone, 4:00PM, she was right on time. She cozied up to a brick wall and lit a cigarette. No sense in being on time, at least not to meet with a human.

She watched the cigarette burn red with each drag and pondered her mission that day. She was going to rebuild The Phoenix in Brooklyn. make it a haven for mutants to enjoy themselves without fear of what the humans might do. She wasn't sure if Roach knew about her plans for the property, but she had to assume he did, either way he wasn't objecting. She smiled to herself, ignoring the gawkers, and imagined what her life might be like once her endeavor came to fruition. She'd have money for sure, lately she always had money, she'd have influence in the city, which to date she had nearly none. Mutants would have a safe haven in New York, Williamsburg no less. The whole neighborhood might flourish, a whole section along the East River blossoming with mutant culture and life. How could the humans in the city dare to ignore and marginalize them at that point?

She crushed her cigarette against the wall and threw it into a trash can, she had a meeting she was appropriately late for.

"I'm meeting with, uh," damn what was that buffoon's name? "Nelson, Gerald Nelson. I believe he's here."

"Right this way, miss."

"I thought you blew me off." Nelson said from the chair he was lazily slumped in.

"Of course not. I don't make plans that I don't intend to keep." Though the generally repulsive man was hardly worth her effort, she wondered if she should have skipped the meeting and just had him give her what she wanted right before he stepped in front of a bus. No, she needed everything to be legit, if it ever came out that anything illegal had happened because of her powers, the whole endeavor would be at risk.

She sat down, studied a plate that once had fried calamari, "You ate an entire plate of calamari?"

"I was hungry and you were taking too long. You know hungry right? Mutants get hungry. don't they."

"Not as often as you do, it seems." He was starting to wear on her. She presented her papers documenting the property that the Phoenix was on, along with an adjacent apartment building. "You own the property these buildings are on, yes?"

"Building. One burned down cause of some jerk mutant."

"Regardless,  you also own the buildings  themselves."

"I do."

"I want to purchase them from you."

"Really? I could give a **** less about the mutie bar, or what used to be one, but that apartment building makes some serious money for me. Williamsburg real estate is on fire right now. I'm not giving it up. Whatever you're offering now, the value will be double that in a year."

"Fair enough. She ran a mental calculation, buying the property would bankrupt her. But she could always steal more money."

"You're familiar with Robert Hedges?"

"The investment guy? Hell yeah, he owns half of Brooklyn."

"Well, he's backing this purchase." Robert Hedges was dead, he committed suicide by jumping from his 50th story penthouse in Manhattan. It was quite the disaster, no one understood why such a successful guy would want to die. And in a few days, no one would understand why he made a multi-million dollar donation to the Cordova foundation for the furthering advancement of mutantkind. They'd suspect that maybe he was a mutant in hiding. She'd say he was, the police would ask if she'd ever seen him use his powers, She'd confirm she saw him demonstrate his incredible laser eyes to her when he was consulting her about being a hidden mutant and the horribkle depression it gave him. Humans loved to think that no one could ever like being a mutant, that it would cause all sorts of depression and anxiety. Obviously he killed himself because he was a mutant and who wants to be a mutant? Money can't fix being a freak, so he died. The end.

"So, know this: I have very powerful associates involved in my organization. "

"It's worth a mil right now, I want 3 million."

"One and a half."

"Come on lady, that apartment building brings in over half a million a year in revenue."

 "Listen, Nelson, that building is a fire trap waiting to happen. you saw what happened to The Phoenix, imagine that same mutant in your apartment building and what she could do. I'd say it's best to sell before the whole property becomes useless."

"You threatening me?"

"Of course not. I'm just saying that it's a dangerous world with mutants running around unchecked with their fire powers and such. You never know who has what powers anymore. maybe I have fire powers... or you do.."

"Jesus lady, fine, 1.5 million."

"Excellent." She took his details and they signed the agreement and called her assisstant to see to the money transfer and handling the transfer of the deed.

Nelson stood up to leave but she grabbed his arm, "Listen Nelson, if you're thinking about reinvesting that money in property, I recommend you stay out of Williamsburg, it's off limits from here on.

"Sure thing, lady. You damn Freakshows making a play for it? Between the Russians, the Chinese and now you guys, I'm gonna take my money and get the hell out of this crazy ass city.

"Good."
 


 

Corruption was always amusing to have to deal with, and this was one of the more amusing cases. They were always so ridiculously arrogant, and this one Gerald Nelson had to take the cake. A mutant of a rather slimy nature. He could imagine the headline now "Something was always a little fishy about this businessman" , and boy were the MRC all over this guy, money laundering, gangland running, meeting with mutant extremists, meeting with anti-mutant extremists, the works, he was scum, and also terribly incompetent. Any individual looking at this on paper would wonder why it took so long to track him down.

Now, he was known to be meeting with someone about the sale of a property, but that wasn't a problem, as far as Linely knew, that was all above board. As he understood it something had burned down in the area... No, they weren't after his business partner, they were after him.

He was on a table next to Nelson, he made sure to face him. The man suspected nothing, as Linely chowed down on a rather nicely cooked plate of salmon spaghetti. Who on earth ordered that much fried calamari? Linely was just about to make a move , seeing as his associate hadn't arrived , when a heavily tattooed woman sat down opposite the man.

The two individuals talked for a while, then Nelson got up-Linely had ordered dessert. He'd decided to wait until the business partner finished whatever it was she was doing. Now it was a simple job of making Nelson collapse with pain, then swooping in as a police officer and taking him outside.

This guy had been knocked unconscious with pain more than once it seemed. This would almost be too easy. Linely's mind became clouded with the many painful memories that Nelson had, all the way down to childhood. He stood up as he found one that looked suitable, and activated it as he "accidentally" bumped into Nelson just as he finished the conversation with the strange tattooed lady.

Nelson went pale and fell on the floor. Simple stuff really. Linely whipped out his badge. "PD Linely, Food Standards, we'll be giving you guys a call." He moved to pick him up. This was going to be nice and easy, he thought.